Territory control and the Steelhew arc.

Toz

Instead of having one person in charge of the whole army (or like, everyone in charge of one army), divide it into branches? Or at least, let us do it. So you can assign divisions to various groups, and appoint a general/a few other people so they can lead their own smaller army - involves more people, gets some political play going (who's the best general? Do you help your rival general out with your troops or do you 'accidentally' let his guys get slaughtered so you can save the day?).

Examples:
ASSIGN <troop> ARMY 2
APPOINT TOZ GENERAL OF 2
and then I can appoint aides to help me manage MY troop section

Moirean

Feedback:

- Can we get the telescope command enabled while the rest is tweaked and worked on, so we can scout and stuff?

- Can we get these guys flagged as troops for CITY CONSCRIPT LIST TROOPS or add a command to see where they all are at a glance.

- Can we get a command to see a fuller version of the above with the orders/types/status appended to them, to get a deeper look at the army at a glance. Alternatively, maybe just x info troop#, instead of the tells (someone muted can't do war, for example, and tells have a CD, so it's harder to run scripts (I know I will be writing scripts) to clean up tracking/grab info.)

- Could we get a troop log to track stuff. Ideally make it two logs - the overall log shows big stuff like battle engagements, while a smaller log would show individual orders given and executed to each division. Ideally also include a way to leave notes on each log. Right now, there's no accountability or tracking so anyone aided to war can just come in and give orders and we have no idea who did it or why.

- Can you reconsider the 10/rooms a turn and maybe have it scale in duration for numbers of rooms marched, or consider some changes to the marching? Right now, it is going to punishingly long to take alternative routes if we don't want the men marching through the rooms laid out by the internal path finder, but without those alternative routes as an option, the whole area/geographical knowledge and forts and all that become less engaging and tactical.

Maghak

Toz said:

Instead of having one person in charge of the whole army (or like, everyone in charge of one army), divide it into branches? Or at least, let us do it. So you can assign divisions to various groups, and appoint a general/a few other people so they can lead their own smaller army - involves more people, gets some political play going (who's the best general? Do you help your rival general out with your troops or do you 'accidentally' let his guys get slaughtered so you can save the day?).

Examples:
ASSIGN <troop> ARMY 2
APPOINT TOZ GENERAL OF 2
and then I can appoint aides to help me manage MY troop section

Unfortunately this is outside of the scope of what is currently feasible.

Moirean said:

Feedback:

- Can we get the telescope command enabled while the rest is tweaked and worked on, so we can scout and stuff?

- Can we get these guys flagged as troops for CITY CONSCRIPT LIST TROOPS or add a command to see where they all are at a glance.

- Can we get a command to see a fuller version of the above with the orders/types/status appended to them, to get a deeper look at the army at a glance. Alternatively, maybe just x info troop#, instead of the tells (someone muted can't do war, for example, and tells have a CD, so it's harder to run scripts (I know I will be writing scripts) to clean up tracking/grab info.)

- Could we get a troop log to track stuff. Ideally make it two logs - the overall log shows big stuff like battle engagements, while a smaller log would show individual orders given and executed to each division. Ideally also include a way to leave notes on each log. Right now, there's no accountability or tracking so anyone aided to war can just come in and give orders and we have no idea who did it or why.

- Can you reconsider the 10/rooms a turn and maybe have it scale in duration for numbers of rooms marched, or consider some changes to the marching? Right now, it is going to punishingly long to take alternative routes if we don't want the men marching through the rooms laid out by the internal path finder, but without those alternative routes as an option, the whole area/geographical knowledge and forts and all that become less engaging and tactical.

1. Telescopes should be working fine at the moment. What are you getting when you try to use them?

2. I'll be working on a war ledger object to place in the barracks that will perform the required functions. It's a bit fiddly!

3. As above.

4. This should be possible; I will see about folding it into #2.

5. Current priority when I find two seconds to rub together is to make it ten rooms moved overall - so if you have moves left over and your next order is a march or charge, it will keep executing orders.

The feedback is appreciated!

EDIT: Each city now has a ledger in their barracks that can be CONSULTed for details.

DOUBLE EDIT: Bloodloch will be pleased to know that the system can now handle arbitrary factions controlling an area.

Xavin

Though unless those arbitrary factions have troops it's not gonna do much good. This is still a 'this event only' system, yes? Because it seems like people are talking and planning like this is going to escalate into a full-blown war system.

Xavin

Also, it looks like consulting ledgers doesn't work for the eastern coalition:

Consult orders for troops:


You take a moment to consult a heavy war ledger, checking on the status of your city's troop status.

H:6515/6194 M:6918/6918 Bl:0 W:100% E:100% S:100% XP:90.21% [csdb] [eb lr] [Night]
+-------------------------------------------------+
H:6515/6194 M:6918/6918 Bl:0 W:99% E:100% S:100% XP:90.21% [csdb] [eb lr] [Night] -15w


When I consult the ledger for engagements or orders I see:

You take a moment to consult a heavy war ledger, checking on the status of your city's recently issued
orders.
H:6515/6194 M:6918/6918 Bl:0 W:100% E:100% S:100% XP:90.21% [csdb] [eb lr] [Night]
Recently issued orders for Duiran:
+-------------------------------------------------+

Is this correct or should it be showing orders for the eastern coalation?

Iosyne

Xavin said:

Though unless those arbitrary factions have troops it's not gonna do much good. This is still a 'this event only' system, yes? Because it seems like people are talking and planning like this is going to escalate into a full-blown war system.

This is correct. We have quite a few people expecting this is the new war system, and trying to get the old war functionality back through their various ministries, so they should keep this in mind.

Saybre

Can we get a COMBINE or ASSEMBLE Option? I have a particular way I want out troops setup, and I need to break them down to build them up, so having a bunch of stragglers will be a royal paaaiiinnn.

Moirean

Can a copy of the ledger be put into the war room for each city?

Xavin

Moirean said:

Can a copy of the ledger be put into the war room for each city?

Mags said that we should all have one.

Moirean

In the barracks, yes. Not the war rooms.

Xavin

Well, not all of us have war rooms!

Moirean

Fairly sure you still do, technically. Somewhere. >_>

Xavin

We have a barracks. There's no war room that I could find. Unless the old 'ancient heartwood' room still exists.

Setne

Xavin said:

We have a barracks. There's no war room that I could find. Unless the old 'ancient heartwood' room still exists.

It still exists, in your hearts, if you believe.

Maghak

The war ledgers will be left in the barracks because this really isn't a war system and it really doesn't matter where the thing is so long as it is accessible.

@Xavin: That is an oversight (the check uses loyalty and your armies are loyal to eastcoal). I'll be fixing it sometime today or tomorrow morning (busy busy IRL day today).

Xavin

Maghak said:

The war ledgers will be left in the barracks because this really isn't a war system and it really doesn't matter where the thing is so long as it is accessible.

@Xavin: That is an oversight (the check uses loyalty and your armies are loyal to eastcoal). I'll be fixing it sometime today or tomorrow morning (busy busy IRL day today).

Okay. Orders that we give right now aren't going to kick in when you enable the system, right?

Maghak

I'll go through and clear orders before enabling the system.

Maghak

Well, the system has been enabled for a few days now and people seem to be having fun with it. Please feel free to post thoughts on the current implementation or features here.

Moirean

I know there is RP and stuff behind this, but the inability to recruit new troops is making it hard to learn the system, since we're afraid to experiment and mess up. 

Jensen

Assuming the territory capture system is a success, I wonder if there could ever be a fast paced territory arena event similar to capture the flag.  

Xavin

Jensen said:

Assuming the territory capture system is a success, I wonder if there could ever be a fast paced territory arena event similar to capture the flag.  

It would certainly be interesting. That said, it would have to be a heck of a lot faster than this current system.

Maghak

@Moirean - The issue here is that until we have a bit more data on things, balancing is going to be difficult - along with having actual players behind Juxa's troops to react to equally large armies.

If it seems like it's going to become an issue, we'll see about some kind of troop generation mechanic.

@Jensen - that is quite a fun idea! We'll see how things progress, but mark me down as in favour.

 

Xavin

@Maghak: That does make sense, but at the same time Juxa has far more troops than any of us could hope to have. Maybe if once per howling we were able to recruit three full groups of whatever type of troop, with engineers and channelers being valued higher than the other types?

Maghak

51 player units compared to 62 Steelhew units at the moment - and Steelhew units are not being intelligently controlled beyond moving towards vague goals and fortifying in some rooms! I have faith that the players can capture Juxa's conquered areas without losing all of their troops - especially now that you don't need to kill all enemy units to take an area.

Moirean

- It would be nice if troops could be given a "smart" command to pick a charge over a march if enemy troops are in the march path. Otherwise, I'm seeing an easy tactic of just plopping down a chunk of troops in a clear march path, which negates the "You don't have to camp troops anymore" of this system.

- If this system gets expanded out, the ordering and tracking could be made a bit cleaner. Right now, it's a bit unwieldly but understandably so, given that this is basically a beta. For future cleanup, some suggestions: standardize commands (eg you can't tell just by number, but to designate a unit to attack you can ONLY use the number), show troop numbers in engagement logs, give an easy table to show troop types/weaknesses/city specific version, have the ledger display for each RL day (it's getting long).

- Allow remote notes (maybe an item or an arti) to show what/where troops are to facilitate remote telling - alternatively nix the tell option and force generals to be in the room to set up orders. If this makes it to a player v player level, being able to sit in barracks and run a war really heavily removes meaningful combat from the equation. 

- For a more long-term system, consider some sort of benefit for controlling troops or a longer capture time if the territory is owned by a non-allied org. This would help make stuff less zergy and force attackers to spend time preparing for assaults and would mean that people wouldn't wake up to find a bunch of territory gone - the end result would be an organic way to help keep troop stuff more spaced out and stop aggressive orgs from steamrolling over others.

- The attack stuff is a bit unclear. Is there a way to prioritize attacking a certain target? I ordered troops to hit one band first, but it wasn't showing up in their remembered orders. From the engagement log, it looks like our two bands were hitting their two bands simultaneously, or else the solider to marksman bonus isn't that good.

- How do we merge units?

Calipso

Maghak said:

The issue here is that until we have a bit more data on things, balancing is going to be difficult - along with having actual players behind Juxa's troops to react to equally large armies.

 

@Maghak - I find this interesting, what do you mean by the bolded part? Can in the future players somehow join Juxa?

Xavin

He probably means that Juxa's troops aren't being actively commanded.

Lin

I know this is a dumb question and that I'm probably missing the point of the entire event by asking this but, is there, in fact, a way to get unenemied to the Regime?

Maghak

@Calipso, @Xavin: This is correct.

@Lin: No, there is not currently a way to be unenemied.

@Moirean:

1. Unfortunately I can see no way to effectively do this with the resources I have access to. Apologies for that.

2. I will add troop numbers to the other ledger logs; the ledger should be keeping logs across three days and discarding the oldest, but that is likely broken.

3. This is outside the scope of the current test.

4. As is this! Sorry.

5. Apparently this is broken - I will look into it now.

6. I'll try and get this functionality finished before I get dragged off to Uni in a few hours. The specific implementation has been puzzling me.

Moirean

I'm assuming you need a chain of territory to capture, right? If not, maybe you should. Ie, you can't leapfrog over areas, but you need to control the adjacent one to start a capture.